Do you have a favourite petrol station? I do. It’s a scruffy little place in East Bergholt in the wilds of north Essex. It has two elderly-looking pumps that I think have padlocks on them when no one is around. I’ve never managed to buy fuel from them, but I’m determined to before it’s too late.
Where it takes about two minutes to fill up a car with petrol or diesel, even the fastest electric car chargers take 30 minutes
Because with the headlong rush to buy electric cars (or EVs as they’re so romantically known) fast coming, the humble British petrol station seems under threat. Whether or not Rishi Sunak does go ahead with the ban on new petrol cars by 2030, the trend is already pretty clear: the number of petrol stations has declined since 2000, down from 13,100 to 8,400 today.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be worrying, because cars, of course, aren’t going anywhere.
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